The telecommunication industry uses different types of communication means to allow communication between people. For example, a person using a telephone to communicate with another person will typically pick up a handset of a telephone and dial a phone number to reach the other person. If the called person is available to take the call then the called person would pick up the handset of their telephone and a telecommunication channel or link would be established between the calling party and the called party. However, there are times when the called party may not be available or may not want to answer the call. Then in those situations a telephone just rings until the calling party hangs up or the communication link is automatically transferred, such as into a voice mail system or an answering machine, or is even forwarded to another number. In any of these cases the called party controls the call once the connection has been made. This wastes a lot of time. Not only that but the calling party may not want to leave a voice message and may not want the call forwarded to an unknown entity or person or location.
The prior art has handled some of these problems in a number of way. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,831 (Creswell et al.), describes a system for providing personal telecommunications services to a subscriber (i.e., the called party) wherein the subscriber may associate different call identifiers with different specifications which define respective call treatments. Creswell's system allows individual subscribers (i.e., the called party) to customize their incoming call treatment, for example, forwarding a telephone call associated with a call identifier to one of a number of different destinations. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,578 (Brennan et al.) describes a so-called personal communication service (hereinafter “PCS”) where calls to a personal number are routed to a PCS service node, which manages the communications services for all subscribers, i.e., called parties. Brennan's PCS governs how attempts to communicate with a called party are handled with appropriate considerations, for example, for who is calling, when the call is made, and the urgency of a particular call. Brennan's system provides the called party with personal control over the way in which the system will operate in completing individual calls made to them from calling parties. Further, Brennan's system provides a so-called “hunting” feature which attempts to contact the called party at a sequence of likely locations which were previously defined by the called party and stored in the system. Upon receiving an incoming call for a particular called party, Brennan's system will attempt to complete the call to the called party by “hunting” through the previously stored list of contact locations.
The prior art is replete with telecommunications systems typified by the technology of the above-described systems where the called party is provided various customized options and a level of control as to how that called party may be reached via various communication devices (and the associated contact numbers therewith) used with various services to which that called party subscribes, i.e., wired telephone, cellular telephone, facsimile, pager, etc. Of course, the primary advantage of such prior art systems is the fact that the called party controls and prescribes the treatment of incoming calls to a particular contact number and how that call may be routed to the plethora of communications devices at any one time in an effort to reach that party. This called party control feature, although very advantageous, does present certain obstacles to the calling party attempting to reach a particular called party. For instance, the calling party to such systems is routed in accordance with the called party's previously defined routing sequence and is usually prevented from interactively participating in the routing sequence. That is, the calling party has no control or input as to the routing of a call to the called party in such a system. Thus, if the incoming call from the calling party, for example, is routed to a particular device to which an answering machine is connected, this device will allow for call completion but leaves the calling party with the only option of leaving a message and not actually completing his desired action of speaking with the called partly directly. Further problems arise for the calling party, for example, when the incoming call is completed but is answered not by the called party but by the another person, e.g., the called party's administrative assistant. Again, the call is completed but the calling party's desired result of actual contact with the called party is defeated.
One known arrangement which addresses the above-described dilemmas of called party controlled telecommunications systems is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,111 (R. D. Slusky), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Slusky describes an enhancement in telecommunications systems employing so-called “sequence calling.” Sequence calling is a telecommunications service feature which allows a telephone service subscriber to specify to the telecommunications infrastructure, e.g., an inter-exchange network, a sequence of telephone numbers to which a call to the subscriber, i.e., called party, can be routed until the subscriber is “found.” For example, the called party may have a personal telephone number of the like associated, for example, with the so-called personal EasyReach, 700 service available from AT&T Corp. Thus, a subscriber to a “700” telephone number is able to specify that a call to that personal number should be routed, for example, first to the subscriber's office telephone and then, if no answer there, to the subscriber's cellular telephone number and, if no answer there, to the subscriber's home telephone. Significantly, Slusky's system addresses the situation where a call to one of the previously defined contact telephone numbers is actually answered by someone other than the subscriber. That is, the calling party to the subscriber's “700” telephone number is presented, for example, a recorded announcement by the telecommunications system that the subscriber, i.e., the called party, has designated a list of telephone numbers to which the incoming “700” call will be routed in sequence in order to reach the called party. The calling party is told that he may cause the call to proceed to the next number in the designated sequence at almost any point in time even if the call is completed to a particular one of the telephone numbers in the sequence. However, the calling party must proceed in the call completion sequence through the telephone numbers as previously designated by the called party. Further, the calling party has no input into the contact information used by the system to route their call to the called party.
Another approach for solving this problem has been discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,069,946 (Lieuwen), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, which provides a technique for calling party definition and control of the contact information and sequencing used to reach a particular called party. In this known prior art, the calling party specifies a set of devices along with their respective contact numbers for use in contacting a particular called party. Thereafter, the service will attempt to locate the called party in accordance with the designated set of communications devices and respective contact numbers so designated by the calling party.
Yet another approach for solving this problem has been discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,072,867 (Lieuwen), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, which provides a method and apparatus for calling party definition and control of the contact information and sequencing used to reach a particular called party. In this known prior art, the calling party specifies a set of devices along with their respective contact numbers for use in contacting a particular called party. Thereafter, attempts are made to contact the called party in accordance with the designated set of communications devices and respective contact numbers so designated by the calling party.
Thus, there exists a need to provide a calling party with increased control over the call sequencing process used, for example, in a telecommunications system, to contact a called party at a variety of communications devices and at a variety of contact locations and/or addresses and/or numbers. This invention overcomes the problems of the prior art. The invention provides the calling party the option of planning and controlling the call without wasting valuable time. More particularly, the invention encompasses a method and an apparatus for caller originated multiple calling, which further includes the transfer of the control of the call back to the calling party in the event that a communication link was unable to be established between the calling party and the called party and/or prompts the calling party to exercise other options to reach a desired called party.